Please explain something about this series.

... Yanagisawa Mitsuo, and they hit it off at once. Somehow arriving at their intended goal just on time, there appeared in front of the two a beautiful girl holding a bouquet of roses. The girl then whacked Mitsuo across the face with the bouquet and handed the flowers over to him. “Freshman, congratulations”, was all she said, and then she left. The stylish, well dressed, perfect woman that had swung at Mitsuo was his childhood friend, Kaga Kouko. As children they had promised to marry each other one day, fulfilling their dreams. In order to escape from her, Mitsuo had gone out secretly and taken the examination for this well known private college, but now she showed up in the freshman orientation hall. She too had taken the law school entrance examination, catching up with him there.

So umm, what exactly does Tada Banri have to do with this?

Quote

Tada Banri, a newly admitted student at a private law school in Tokyo, found himself completely lost after the opening ceremony, trying to find his way to the freshman orientation. At that moment, he ran into another lost freshman from the same school, Yanagisawa Mitsuo, and they hit it off at once.

________________If you were to go there and come back to me hurt, I will take your place.. and pull everything you hate.. into destruction...I will erase anything that hurts you.. from the face of this world.

Tada Banri, a newly admitted student at a private law school in Tokyo, found himself completely lost after the opening ceremony, trying to find his way to the freshman orientation. At that moment, he ran into another lost freshman from the same school, Yanagisawa Mitsuo, and they hit it off at once. Somehow arriving at their intended goal just on time, there appeared in front of the two a beautiful girl holding a bouquet of roses. The girl then whacked Mitsuo across the face with the bouquet and handed the flowers over to him. “Freshman, congratulations”, was all she said, and then she left. The stylish, well dressed, perfect woman that had swung at Mitsuo was his childhood friend, Kaga Kouko. As children they had promised to marry each other one day, fulfilling their dreams. In order to escape from her, Mitsuo had gone out secretly and taken the examination for this well known private college, but now she showed up in the freshman orientation hall. She too had taken the law school entrance examination, catching up with him there.

I think the original poster was confused by how the summary was phrased. You have to admit, the syntax and sentence structure is fairly messy (most sentences have more than one subject, and the pronouns can refer to either male character).

Basically, Tada Banri (male) is a new student, he meets Yanagisawa Mitsuo (male) and they become fast friends. Kaga Kouko (female) whacks Yanagisawa in the face with flowers. However, the way the synopsis is written, it is ambiguous whether it is Tada Banri who has the promise with the Kaga Kouko, or if it's Yanagisawa Mitsuo who has this relationship with her. The only reference point for the childhood friends is 'he', so which 'he' is the synopsis referring to? (Side note, this pronoun ambiguity causes a lot of people problems/bad marks when they write essays, so it's not embarrassingly uncommon).

After that confusing sentence, it is then stated that Mitsuo applied to the school to avoid Kouko. Since Mitsuo is the one with the established connection with Kouko, most synopsis readers will assume that they (Mitsuo and Kouko) are the aforementioned childhood friends. However, this statement cannot be definitive until one reads the actual story.

In any case, the original poster has a legitimate line of inquiry (i.e., what is Tada Banri's role in this story). If I get around to reading this novel/manga, I'll report back.

Update: Tada Banri is basically just a witness to the synopsis. Mitsuo and Kouko are childhood friends; Mitsuo had plans of escaping/freedom, while Kouko has plans of marriage. Both Tada Banri and Yanagisawa Mitsuo were hit by Kaga Kouko's bouquet of flowers. Not sure where the supernatural tag comes from.

However, the real story for Tada Banri is not really mentioned/developed in the current synopsis.

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

Tada Banri is a newly-admitted university student in law (or pre-law) looking for an exciting college life (and a change from his previous life). While looking for the school orientation, Banri happens to meet Yanagisawa Mitsuo, a fellow law student who appeared to be as lost as he is. Sensing kindred spirits in each other, they become fast friends.

A car pulls up to the pair. Banri observes a beautiful, seemingly-perfect woman stepping out of the car, carrying a bouquet of roses. She approaches the two... only to begin assaulting Mitsuo with the bouquet, shoving Banri out of the way in the process. "Congratulations on your admission!" she exclaims, dropping the bouquet into Mitsuo hands before leaving.

Apparently, this woman was Mitsuo's childhood friend, Kaga Kouko. She is a self-proclaimed 'perfect woman', who is determined to fulfill a childhood promise: marriage with Mitsuo, a critical component of her 'perfect scenario' and 'perfect future'. In order to escape from Kouko's ambitions, Mitsuo had gone to great lengths to secretly test and apply to a private university. However, the efforts were in vain, as she too had taken the entrance examination, to learn law in the same university.

Banri is envious of his newfound friend's life, but is now determined to make his own just as exciting.

is there a love triangle between the three characters in the synopsis? i hate love triangles like that so if anybody could let me know it would be much appreciated

Triangle? More like a line. Read the last page in the first book, and you see Banri looking at Linda, Kouko looking at Banri, Mitsuo sneeking a glance at Kouko, and Chinami looking at Mitsuo with some concern.

And the supernatural element, Banri's Ghost, is watching over it all.

@Sunfire: The summary given on the home page at Baka-Tsuki is a close translation of the summary given on the Japanese Wikipedia page regarding the story. I translated the wikipedia article early on (October 2010) to get some clues as to what the story would be about. My Japanese has improved a bit since, and I've revised it once, but if you want to provide a better synopsis, be my guest. Baka-Tsuki is an open site, after all, and we accept honest improvements to what is presented there.